2 great free resources for learning Chinese

This month I want to introduce you to 2 free resources for learning Chinese (Mandarin). Both resources are high tech. One is a free app called Chineseskill and another is a podcast from Jenny Zhu. What I love about both of these solutions is that you can learn on the go if you’re on the MRT or just going for a walk.

1) ChineseSkill

This app is a high quality education game with the Panda as the mascot. It has practical categories such as food, colors, math. Each category has 3 rounds that you must past to unlock the next category unless you pass the “test out”, which will unlock all the categories for that level. The questions are interesting as they go straight into multiple choice questions. These questions have pictures, chinese characters, and pinyin so you can hear the pronunciation when you touch the pictures. It is really obvious which option it is, but you end up learning because of the combination of picture, sound, pinyin, and chinese characters. I think it is genius that they manage to deliver all this information so simply. They have other question formats that test your listening skills, require you to translate the chinese to english, and even write the chinese for the english. This app is useful for learning some chinese when you have downtime at the MRT or waiting for a friend. I’ve downloaded this for the Iphone on the app store.

This app is useful for learning some chinese when you have downtime at the MRT or waiting for a friend

chineseskill is a great app for learning chinese on the gochineseskill app

What you get out of the Jenny’s podcast is that it is entertaining and you get an cultural education from a great team

2) Important Chinese things with Jenny Zhu (Chinesepod podcast)

Jenny Zhu has developed into a household name in the modern Chinese learning world. I discovered that she regularly releases an entertaining cultural show that is both in mandarin and English. Jenny hosts the shot with David Wei, and Fiona Tian. Jenny provides her cheerful personality and has perfected a blend of speaking in Chinese and English. If I recall correctly Jenny spent some time studying in Australia and brings an understanding of Western culture and introduces us to Chinese culture and contrasts the differences on the show. She is entertaining and is not afraid to keep it real and has given me insight into how the Chinese think.

Jenny’s podcast page

Fiona Tan is an attractive half Taiwanese half Western Mandarin teacher based in Taiwan that came to my attention through Youtube. She used the youtube platform to teach things like ordering bubble tea. She recently joined the Chinesepod team and brings a Western and a Taiwanese perspective on the topics they discuss on the show. The show is interesting as they’ve talked about things such as drug busts in China, Health care, and travel. What you get out of the Jenny’s podcast is that it is entertaining and you get an cultural education from a great team. The webpage for each episode lists the chinese and pinyin used on the show as well as actual podcast, which you can play from the site or download and synch on your iphone using itunes. Good job guys.

I was contacted by some people in Vancouver who were interested in attending my SLR video workshop. The problem was that I’m living in Taiwan now. As I was currently teaching English I decided that I had the mindset to create my own course on creating travel videos using video as the platform. I put in the many hours to put together an outline and film the course. I thought this would be time well spent as there wasn’t any in depth travel video courses. So let’s start with how you can make money teaching on-line!

Where to sell your video course not Youtube

I love Youtube, but I think it is not the correct platform to sell a video course. My top video “Night in Vancouver” currently has 30,000 views and I haven’t earned anything on it. Youtube surprisingly rejected my request for monetization. Even if I did monetize based on 4kdownload’s claim of $5-7 per 1,000 views it would be $210US. If I used another site’s claim of $264 per month for 70,000 views this works out to .003 per view. Ok that’s not bad. Perhaps I should look more into sorting that out. I could also leverage to the high viewership on this video to promote my course, which I do. The point is that Youtube is not the platform to sell a course. It is difficult and requires a bit of luck in my experience to get in 5 digit viewership.

I could sell it on the Internet, but then I would have to find an audience and the logistics of delivering the video to my students. A 4 minute video lecture was 422mb for a 4minute and 20 second video lecture. I could have delivered it through my website and deliver it through E-junkie the problem was that the customer would have to download it, which would take too long. I searched the Internet for the right solution and came across Udemy.com – an online teaching platform based in San Francisco.

my top youtube video Nightlife in Vancouver with 30,000 views has earned me any revenue

What is Udemy?

They are an on-line learning platform based in San Francisco California USA.

They are well established with over 4,000,000 students

They have 18,000 courses ranging teaching people how to “Use Dropbox” to “teaching photography”

They have an app for Iphone and Google Android.

If you multiply the course price and number of students you would think some people are killing it on Udemy

What I think of Udemy so far?

My first course on Udemy
It is free to become an instructor and was fairly straightforward to create a course outline and upload my video to their platform. Their website is user friendly and provides you the guidance you need to complete your course. They do a good job of packaging your course for the web. If you’re interested you can check out my course “The Art of Travel video” here.

Students can preview your course curriculum and promotional video and decide if they want to join and pay for your course. Once they join you can interact with your students using Udemy. If Udemy sell’s the course through their efforts they keep half of the revenue. Udemy has a great system for creating coupon discounts for your course. If you sell the course through your promotional efforts you keep 100% of the income minus 3% for credit card transactions.

After creating my first course I wanted to use my momentum to create my second course on how to make money creating travel videos. They have a good community through their facebook group. The members are other teachers and people that are a part of Udemy. It is useful to get feedback on your course their and ask others questions.

udemy facebook group has been helpfulIt wasn’t long before I got my second course on-line.

I’ve made some sales and once of the great things is that Udemy uses a non-exclusive model so you can sell the course elsewhere. The thing to be aware of is that if your course is free on Udemy you can’t sell it on another platform like Skillfeed.

My second course “make money with travel videos”

Another Platform to sell your course called Skillfeed

Skillfeed is another on-line teaching platform owned by the major stock footage firm Shutterstock. I am familiar with Shutterstock as I host and sell almost 2000 video clips on their site.

If you put in the time and effort to create in my opinion it is a no brainer to sign up for free and host your course on Skillfeed.

What is Skillfeed?

They are an on-line learning platform. I think based in New York as they are a Shutterstock company

They are not as established as Shuterstock with 437 instructors

They have 43,499 video tutorials. I think they don’t list the number of courses as it is still a low number.

What I think of Skillfeed so far?

make money with travel videos on skillfeed I had a few minor issues uploading my videos to Skillfeed, but once up their I went through their approval process rather quickly. Their model is different as they charge their their customers a monthly flat fee for unlimited access to courses. The way you earn revenue is by the number of minutes viewed for your courses. It was quite encourage to see the number of minutes go up day by day and currently check it daily.

I have the same two courses up there from Udemy. The great thing was that it didn’t take much more work to get the same two course up on Skillfeed. I think if you’re planning to teach a course and sell them that the best strategy would be to sell both on Udemy and Skillfeed. At the moment my Gopro course is performing much better on Skillfeed than it is on Udemy. Having your course on both platforms gives you access to a broader audience.

If you found this post useful and do decide to sign up for skillfeed I would appreciate you sign up here.

It is a referral link for me. After you sign up and create your courses you can also share your experience and ask other instructors to sign up if you believe in it.

Skillshare a 3rd teaching platform

As we speak I got contacted from someone last night on email. She said she was impressed with my photography and wanted to invite me to host my content on skillshare. Here is what I know about skillshare

I’m still learning more about this site, but it looks like there is a minimum requirement of 2 classes with 300+ students to qualify to get paid. I’m wondering how if this means your first 2 courses have to be free before you apply. If this is the case it is a deterrent to leveraging your existing courses on Udemy and Skillfeed. I will share more as I learn.

If you enjoyed this post and are interested in joining Skilfeed please join using this link. It will help me with a referral income and doesn’t cost you anything.

Sign up for my newsletter and I will share a PDF that covers the following:

What tools I used to create my video and screen captures

Tips on creating your course

How I created the cover’s for my course on my own

Lessons learned: what worked and what didn’t

My revenue for the past 2 months on these 2 platforms

Some of the tactics that I used on Udemy to earn reviews and get my first students

A good podcast from another resource that provides strategy and tactics on Udemy and Skillfeed

My experience publishing an Amazon kindle e-book

In the past month I’ve been inspired by success stories from publishing e-kindle books on sites like Patt Flynn’s blog and Meron Bareket’s blog . These sites are right up my alley providing free inspiring podcast’s with real stories from people that are making a good living using passive income methods. I even saw a success story on BBC new’s with someone making a six figure income writing their book over the weekend. The roadblock from getting started by what to write about and the motivation to actually get started and complete the process.

My course on making money with my travel videosIn the past several months I have seen a growing passive income from my stock footage on Pond 5 and Shutterstock. I’ve even recently discovered two on-line teaching platforms that let you create your own course and sell them. The first was Udemy, where I’ve created 2 travel video related courses that have generated some sales, and I have my Gopro video course being made for sale tomorrow. During this process I discovered another teaching platform owned by Shutterstock called Skillfeed. As these teaching platforms are non-exclusive I was able to leverage the same video content to create a course on Skillfeed without too much additional effort. I’ve made at least made a 3 figure US income in 1 month with 2 courses. With several revenue streams I was eager to find the next area on the Internet I could look at building some business.

With some E-book momentum I decided to start on the second title based on my two separate trips to New Zealand. During the first trip I made a series of blog posts I made from my trip in 2010 to the North and South Islands long before Chicvoyage. I’m lucky that it is still on-line as I’ve misplaced some of those pictures and wrote the blog post during that actual trip. The first 18 day trip takes us to such places as the Coromendel, Rotorura, the popular Tongariro Alphine Crossing, Christchurch, Queenstown, Milford Sound, and Auckland.

The second trip took placed under completely different circumstances. I sold my possessions, sold my Acura TL, and my luggage in tow said goodbye to friends and family and left for my second solo filming journey to Auckland for 5 days. I stayed at a Airbnb paradise at the Te Atatu Peninsula with locals to experience life as a local and tap into their knowledge and explore local destinations such as Muriwai beach, Piha, and Waiheke Island.

Image from the book of a grass covered volcanic crater with one of the best views of AucklandIf you’re curious on the adventure and experiences I went through and like great images and in depth detail on travel details like restaurant menu’s, flight airlines, places I’ve stayed, and revealing popular local destinations like Muriwai beach and Waiheke Island then this book may be for you.

Now onto the Kindle Process. I found there was a lack of information as the sites I Googled for their experience ended up trying to sell me something to help me become a master at this. I decided to just try it out. What did I have to lose?

The Kindle Process

1. The first step was to get the content together into a word document. In my case the raw content was already, but I had to get the content from several sources into one document.

2. Next go straight to the source and download the building your kindle guide from Amazon. This guide covers in great detail the paragraph settings and spacing, formatting for the title, picture standards and more things along those lines. I actually went ahead and created the e-book for New Zealand before looking at this guide. A mistakes as I ended up having to re-insert all my images, remove headers and footers, and many other changes to put my book in a Kindle friendly format.

3. Next I had I got some feedback on the book and cover from Pat Flynn’s Kindle Facebook group. I also emailed family and reached out to friends on Facebook. I got some responses and made some adjustments

4. Next I created a Kindle account on Amazon to provide my information, fill out a tax form, and start providing information on my title. I also downloaded a Kindle Viewer that mimics what your book will look like on different Kindle formats. I heard that this is a must if you don’t have a Kindle.

5. After the word document was in the Kindle format the guide will instruct you to save your document as an HTM file and zip the output. You will then upload this to Amazon

6. Once the upload is finished you have the option to view it with an on-line viewer. Once you click this you can go back and download a file that you can open on your kindle viewer. Note that you may have to download an add-on to get the viewer to work.

7. View your book using the kindle using different formats like Kindle Fire (color) and the black and white formats as well

8. You may find things you need to change. I had to change the table of contents as it looked like garbage on the kindle.

9. After I made the adjustments I had to go through step 5 again. Once this was done on the Amazon site I selected the pricing and whether I wanted to be part of their exclusive program.

10. Next I had to publish the course and then wait. I published it at around 3pm today and checked it at about midnight at it was live!

Whew, the process involved a lot of small steps, but the actual process of getting your files on-line to them publishing it was the same day in my experience. From here I wait to see how it does. If you’re interested in seeing the book there is a link on the picture below.

Essential travel tools for 2015

Greg is a World Explorer, Film-maker & Travel & Technology Serial Entrepreneur has directed, shot, edited, and produced over 30 high definition travel and lifestyle related videos on Youtube videos in addition to producing ChicVoyage in Asia – modern travel adventures on the Amazon.com store. He has been instructed by globally renown SLR Director and film-maker Phillip Bloom.

Greg Hung World explorer, film-maker & entrepreneur

Put away the lonely planet and arm yourself with a smartphone. The world is changing quickly especially technology. Technology is making a positive impact on the everyday traveler allowing you a great amount of travel independence. I don’t believe technology is a substitute for asking people questions, but they sure work well together. Being a seasoned traveler here is my 2013 list of essential travel tools

Unlocked smart phone

When I spent $900 Canadian for my iphone 4s I didn’t get to fully enjoy the benefits until I started traveling to countries like Taipei, Hong Kong, China, South Africa, Singapore, and Australia. The unlocked smartphone opens the door to so many benefits to you as a traveler. First, in most countries you can purchase a prepaid sim card at the airport ,which provides you access to a local phone number, sms capability and fast internet access. I refer to fast internet as 3G or higher. As a traveler you now have access to your google maps meaning you have hardly any excuse to get lost. Google maps now has audio GPS capability making your smartphone a functional gps. Plans typically range from $15-30 US for 500MB – 1GB depending on the country and some value for SMS and phone calls. Some other benefits:

Local phone calls without worrying about unexpected surprises with a monthly bill. For most countries you can check the value on your sim in real-time by sending out an SMS message. You can also increase the value if you run out ( also known as topping up) at convenience stores or a local branch at the mall

Smartphone Apps – finding the right app can add so much value to your everyday life and travel too. For example the XE currency app will allow you add numerous apps and convert prices for you on the fly and includes a calculator.

an unlocked smartphone is an essential tool today

US Cash

this currency is one of the most portable and accepted in the world. If you have an opportunity to get a good rate get as much as you can. I’ve received excellent exchange rates on US in countries like South Africa, Australia, and Singapore that are better than drawing out money through debit.

Laptop/tablet

This depends on your needs. A well stocked ipad with movies, games, and electronic books gives you a portable way to pass your time on those long flights. You can also jot down notes, and use it to surf the web on a larger screen. If you are a travel blogger, serious videographer or photographer, or a professional that can do work using the internet a laptop is an essential tool. If you are taking plenty of photos and videos you can save it your laptop’s hard drive to free up your memory cards. You can take it a step further and bring a portal hard drive or memory stick to back up those memories.

a tablet like an ipad is great for portable entertainment on the planeA thermos container can keep your cold water cold or your hot beverage hot.

Thermos Mug

A thermos mug is a container that features special technology that keeps your cold drinks cold and hot drinks hot. You can use it keep hot teas when you are cold, cold drinks in hot weather, or use it to store your favorite beverage whatever it may be, If you are traveling in a country that offers free filtered that means you just fill up your container and save yourself some money

a portable usb charger can give your smart phone an emergency charge while you’re out

Smart phone portable charger

Think of these as portable batteries that can charge your smartphone if you need to charge it up while on the go. Best of all these devices can be used for most USB devices. If you will be doing driving during your trip I recommend getting a USB charger for the cigarette lighter.

Camera

If you serious about travel you will get an SLR camera with a good versatile lens. The quality of the photos and video gives you access to create and capture memories like never before. There are modern action camera’s like the go pro 3 that can capture video in the highest resolutions that are slow motion friendly (1080P 60 frames per second). The camera’s have also begun to feature wifi and a smartphone app. This allows you connect your smartphone to your camera and do things like take a remote picture, and download it your phone and upload it to a social media site in minutes. I can write an entire article on this topic. For now I recommend a camera has high definition video capabilities, supports detachable lens, and getting a tripod.

Hardside luggage

These suitcases are made of a light durable plastic with four wheels. The suitcases are so light and will protect your luggage well. The four wheels will allow you to move the suitcase smoothly while keeping it upright allowing you to put more luggage on top of it. They also offer a pull out handle to easily pull your luggage. With almost all airlines charging by weight this case can provide long term convenience and savings.

WikiVoyage

This website is like Wikipedia for but travel. If you are traveling on the go and need essential travel information like how to get around and what to see and do then do a google search for the city you are in and append wikivoyage to it. For example “Kuala Lumpur Wikivoyage”. I believe travel guides like Lonely planet are useful as reference guides, but when you are on the go I find the wikivoyage to be more practical and useful. Best of all it is free. Check it out here.

Trip Advisor

This user generated content sites has been consistently helpful when traveling to countries like Turks & Caicos, Beijing, Bali, and more. Trip advisor does shine if you know the name of the business or activity for your destination. The value you get is the opinion your form form reading multiple reviews especially recent reviews that are written by travelers. Look at the reviewer’s credentials. Have they written many reviews and how descriptive are their reviews? Be sure to do your part and contribute to the community by writing your own reviews. I like to read travel guides and the travel wiki to get an overview on the country and area I want to stay. When I zone in more detail that is when I find trip advisor can be another reference to confirm how good a hotel or a tour operator is.

Google Translate

I’ve recently arrived in Taipei, Taiwan to live and learn Mandarin. It is a reminder that we cannot expect people at every destination to speak english. When you have run out of sign language to communicate and don’t want to phone a friend for help you can rely on google translate to come to the rescue. With support for 72 languages you can download the app and enter in a any word or phrase and have it instantly translated. Better yet you can press a button and have the software read out the word for you so you know how to pronounce and practice it. Just don’t turn up the volume to loud if you are easily embarrassed.

Pleco

This app is essential for looking up words in English or Chinese to find the translation. The most powerful took is the OCR add on to give you the capability to translate Chinese to English!

Airbnb

This app and website is an alternative to hotels that you can hire from local people. You can rent you short-term or longer term from a local apartment to a private room. I lived in Australia for 2 months using Airbnb’s and had a great experience living with locals like a local. Some hosts provide travel guides and even pick you up for the airport providing extras that hotels can’t offer.

Any there any there tools that you can suggest that are must haves for you??

Tips for planning and packing for living abroad

Greg is a World Explorer, Film-maker & Travel & Technology Serial Entrepreneur has directed, shot, edited, and produced over 30 high definition travel and lifestyle related videos on Youtube videos in addition to producing ChicVoyage in Asia – modern travel adventures on the Amazon.com store. He has been instructed by globally renown SLR Director and film-maker Phillip Bloom.

This article applies to:
Travel film-makers
Travelers that want to pack their luggage smarter
Expatriates relocating to another country

I have been traveling abroad since 2009 where I have enjoyed Europe backpack trips, Hiking adventure trips to Machu Pichu, and upscale Asia adventure trips with camera gear. My experience with these trips have taught me to make better choices. For my next upcoming trip I will be traveling with plenty of camera gear and my personal luggage that will come along with me to what could be a 1 year working holiday.

How to maximize carrying space at minimal cost

What you will need

measuring tape

travel scale

a smartphone – to calculate volume and convert between pounds and kilograms etc

Step 1 – Read the baggage policy rules of the airlines you will use the most

If you think of this as a game you cannot play smart and effectively if you do not know the rules. The rules depend on which airline you will fly with the most.

How many bags do they allow?

Check the airlines that you will be traveling with the most to figure out what their baggage policies are. I’ll use Allegiant airlines as an example. At the time of writing they allow you to bring on $35 for the first and second bag. Hint: you’ll want to bring the second bag since you’re paying for it.

What are the weight and size restrictions?

The bag must be under 40 pounds and under 80 linear inches.

What are linear inches?

Linear inches is a term used to describe the sum of the length, width and depth of your baggage. For example my large suitcase has the following dimensions which works out to 65 linear inches.

32l 22w 11.5d=65 linear inches

Step 2 Picking your luggage

The mothership

This will be my largest suitcase. I call it the mothership. My requirement is to maximize the carrying capacity at the lowest cost. I want to make a smart choice, and to do that I wanted to figure out how to measure the performance of the suitcase (see my calculations below). Other considerations that I think are important to factor in are the weight, warranty and convenience features. Convenience features that I think are useful are telescopic handles, aesthetics, 4 wheels,and a peg to connect a luggage strap to connect to other suitcases to tow it.

How to measure the performance of a suitcase

To calculate the carrying capacity get the dimensions of your suitcase using a measuring tape or refer to the website of the company that made it. To weigh the luggage use a travel scale. My friend Agnes got me one years ago, but I only opened it a couple days ago and I highly recommend it.

The calculations

32l 22w 11.5d=65 linear inches

8096 volume cubic inches (calculated by multiple L X W X D)

weight -11lbs

To measure the performance of the suitcase I wanted to see how much carrying capacity this I’m getting for this luggage for the weight.

The calculation. 8096 cubic inches / 11lb’s

= 736 of cubic inches per pound.

Okay so this suite case meets the requirements of allegiant, but the performance doesn’t mean anything to me until I compare it to another product.

I compared it with one of the newer suitcases by Hey’s and got the following figure.

Heys Delta large

30 X 21 X 11= 62 linear inches

6930 volume cubic inches

11.6lbs

= 597 of cubic inches per pound.

Okay so this means 139 cubic inches more space per pound with my existing suit case. I like it! Remember to consider other factors that you value like 4 wheels, or if it looks super sleek. We all have different priorities.

Allegiant charges you $35 for 2 checked bags. In this case it would be foolish not to get a second suitcase.

My second checked in luggage

Storing camera gear and tennis rackets in the the Briggs & Riley

Briggs and Riley

L30.5 W 15 H16.5

weight 4.5lbs

volume cubic inches 7548

performance = 1677.6 of cubic inches per pound.

I bought this suitcase to carry a DSLR camera slider. I originally bought a carrying case for my slider and I used it when traveling throughout Asia. I didn’t bring my slider as it weighs under 10 pounds and this case doesn’t have wheels. It hurt my shoulder and the handles eventually broke. Please learn from my lesson. WHEELS on your luggage is a good idea. So this Briggs and Riley piece is a high performer. Yes! I will keep this and it provides a lot of carrying capacity for the weight.

This DSLR camera slider has to travel with me. You need wheels to travel with this

Summary for checked in luggage

Total storage for checked in luggage

8096 + 7548 = 15644 volume cubic inches

combined 15.5 lbs

Allegiant requires that checked bags must be under 40 pounds so I have have 24.5 lbs of allowance for my stuff.

So my two pieces of checked luggage will meet the airports requirements for weight and size. I will try to look for luggage tags to so I can connect and tow them together as I will also have my carry on and unless you get a smart cart I will only have 2 arms to pull carry-ons.

update: I went to the local travel stored called Wanderlust travel in Kitsilano and I got a detachable tag to connect large suitcase to the handle of the Briggs

Some airlines like jetstar do not look for how many pieces of luggage, but care about the total weight of your checked in luggage. For example their starting weight allowance is 20kg, which works out to about 44lb’s.

Keep in mind that these weights are without anything in them so don’t forget to weigh your luggage again and check them against the weight requirements. Pre-purchase additional weight allowance on-line before you arrive at the airport to save from paying more at the airport. Planning does take time, but gets rewarded.

Now for carry-on luggage

Step 1 – Read the rules

this is important as each airline will apply different rules Allegiant allows 1 personal item (purse, backpack or laptop computer) and a carry-on bag.

Step 2 – What to bring on carry-on

I bring the important stuff like my laptop, lens, and camera equipment. You want to keep your valuables on your check in luggage that with you at all times. Sometimes you are vulnerable when you need the restroom, which means it is a good idea to make a friend with your airline passenger or you can bring it with you to the restroom. You also may want to entertain yourself or do some work so bringing a book, tablet or laptop is a good idea.

The travel scale on my back pack

My backpack

I’m choosing a backpack because it has wheels, telescopic handle, and has decent carrying capacity.

21.5H X 13.5W X 12D = 3483 volume cubic inches

weight 10lbs, 4.5 kg

performance 348 volume cubic inches per pound

I compared this to a hey’s 21 inch carry on suitcase to get a relative comparison.

21 X 15.5 X 9.0= 2929.5 volume cubic inches

7.2lbs

406.87 volume cubic inches per pound

okay it looks like I’m losing 58.9 cubic inches per pound based on the weight, but we are allowed a personal item so what can we do with that?

* Personal Item. The one (1) Personal Item such as a purse, briefcase, laptop computer, small backpack, or small camera must fit completely underneath the seat in front of you, and must not exceed maximum size of:
7 in. H x 15 in. W x 16 in. D (17.8 cm x 38.1 cm x 40.6 cm). They don’t specify the weight so to capitalize on this you may want to put heavy stuff on the personal item. For Jetstar they do not specify the weight, but it must be able to fit underneath my seat.

camera bag

I have a camera bag that I used for my camera gear. I was going to sell it, but it can used around my shoulder and I know it fits underneath the seat. So here are the calculations.

W10 X 11H X 8D in = 880 volume cubic inches

1lb weight

performance = 880 volume cubic inches per pound

This camera bag is an incredible performer!

3 bags all attached together for easy transport in the airport

Summary for carry-on luggage

With the camera bag and my back page I have a combined of 4363 (28% of my checked luggage) volume cubic inches per pound at a combined weight of 11lbs. This meets the requirements of both airlines

I stuffed my suitcases with most of what I will be packing to get a sample weight I’ll need to purchase my weight allowance. Based on the weight with my luggage I may have to reduce the weight on my check in and carry on luggage.

Article Summary

Planning and make good choices about your luggage can save you money, maximize your storage capacity, and give your a better traveling experience.

In this article I have have given you tools and a performance framework for figuring out how well how your luggage performs against each other. Here are some key takeaways

* Know the rules of the game – I know it can be intimidating, but read the baggage policy of the airlines you will fly the most
* know what your traveling requirements are – are you going on a short trip, photography or videography, or relocating your life
* Equip yourself with tools – smart phone applications can help convert currencies and weights, travel scales, and measuring tape empower you to make good choices tip: an app I use for converting currencies, weight, volume for iphone is called converter +
* Luggage performance – I have developed this method of calculating performance of the luggage to use a factual way of determining carrying space per weight
* Don’t forget to weigh your luggage again after packing!
* Purchase the appropriate baggage allowance on-line to save money